My fortress, I stand firm
by Second Star On The Left
Summary: Kate has a lot of things to reclaim after she's rid of Amaru: her body, her faith. Her crush on Seth. Kate, the Geckos, and the quiet of the aftermath.


"I didn't intend on kissing you," Seth says, his face stern and serious the way it only usually gets when they're in danger, and something in Kate's chest crumples - she knows what crumpling feels like. Her whole body crumpled when Amaru left it, and before, when she died.

"Oh," she says, and forces an achingly casual shrug. "Okay."

She puts the car into drive, pulls out onto the road, and they're so quiet that she can almost hear the billow of dust behind them. It's been gloriously hot, almost _too_ hot, and she's got a patch of sunburn right along the back of her neck, between her hairline and the neck of the t-shirt she borrowed from Richie yesterday. It's itching, and when a bead of sweat rolls out of her hair and onto the too-hot skin, it feels like an ice cube being dropped down her spine.

Dust billows. Seth frowns. Kate's chest crushes itself into smaller and smaller shapes, until she thinks that maybe, she's going to suffocate in the silence.

* * *

Seth strips to his undershirt as soon as they're back to their cruddy motel room, and Kate pauses to wonder, _why didn't we rent a place with air conditioning?_

It isn't as if they can't afford it. They're more than rich enough to afford an actual _hotel,_ never mind another nameless, faceless, mould-infested roadside motel. She'd like a shower with decent water pressure, complimentary bathrobes, towels enough that they don't have to share, and a carpet that doesn't leave her in need of flip-flops.

Her sunburn itches painfully under the shower, prickling like nettle-sting, but she ignores it. Shampoo stings worse, conditioner soothes a little, and then she's careful to gather her hair over her shoulder so it's not lying against the tender skin. The towel she wraps around herself is a little shorter than she's used to, which means this is an even shittier class of motel than they usually use, and she feels self-conscious of the extra inch or two of thigh exposed when she slips out of the bathroom, into their room.

Seth has stripped to just his boxers, sweat shining on his back and shoulders as he cleans his gun. He's sitting on the edge of the bed, facing the door, and the yellow glow from the sodium streetlights through the half-open blinds paints him like a tiger.

Kate, despite being in the better position to attack, feels cornered. Even when they're sharing a bed, Seth always keeps his undershirt on, or his trousers. He strips and redresses in the bathroom after his shower. She doesn't have to see him like this, because seeing him halfways here is bad enough. She doesn't _need_ this.

"Shower's free," she says, voice perfectly even, as if there's nothing amiss in the whole world. "I tried not to use up all the hot water, but I'm not promising anything."

She turns to her little suitcase, one of those neat little carry-on size ones, to find panties and a bra while he stands up and stretches, and pretends not to feel his eyes on the backs of her legs.

"You want me to put some aftersun on that?" he asks, and she glances back over her shoulder to him, hoping her face isn't as pink as the back of her neck. "It looks sore."

It is. It hurts like a bitch.

"I'm fine," she says. "If it gets sore, I can reach it."

He nods, uncertain, and closes the door of the bathroom behind him, eyes heavy on hers.

 _I didn't intend on kissing you._ She wishes he hadn't. She wishes he'd do it again.

* * *

She sleeps on her side, because it hurts to lie on her back. She gave in and put on aftersun, kept her hair tied up high on her head and rubbed the pale pink cream into the back of her neck while Seth sat on the other side of the bed, facing away from her but looking over his shoulder every few minutes, as if making sure she hadn't disappeared into the oily, searing silence that had fallen over them.

It still hurts, though, so she sleeps on her side.

She tries sleeping on her right, facing away from Seth, toward the bathroom door - he always keeps himself between her and the main door, and while at first it was sweet, now it makes her roll her eyes. How many nights had she lugged him back to shittier motel rooms than this, her exhausted and him out of his mind on drugs? How many nights had she sat with her gun trained on the door while he was passed out, or getting sick into a dirty toilet? - but she landed hard on that shoulder last week, while Richie was giving her some hand-to-hand training, and it's still a little tender.

Which means she has to roll over, onto her left.

Seth is facing her.

He's asleep, thank God, lashes long and dark on his cheeks in the sickly light, breath even and low. He keeps one hand curled under his pillow, probably wrapped around his gun, and the other over the covers, which are covering his stomach, but not his unusually bare chest.

She watches a bead of sweat roll along his collarbone, in time with the one rolling down her shoulder, and clenches her fist to keep from reaching out, from tracing that same path with her fingertip. What would he do, if she woke him with her hands on his body?

He'd tell her he was _no good._ That was always what he said, when they got that half-inch too close. Kate wanted to push over that half-inch, but Seth always manages to get his hands to her shoulders and ease her away just enough, to create a gap just right for an escape.

He's good at escapes. Escape a bank, escape the marshals, escape the labyrinth, escape the world if only for a few hours, escape _her._

Not this time.

She's not quite brave enough to touch his chest, so close to his carefully walled-off heart, so she tiptoes her fingers across the faded comforter to his hand, splayed and still, and touches him there. They've touched hands before, his big and warm over hers while he stood against her back and corrected her grip, or tight and strong while helping her up, so this isn't strange, not really.

His fingers twitch, catch around hers, and her crumpled-in chest expands until she feels like she'll pop.

He snuffles in his sleep, rubs his cheek against his pillow, and doesn't wake.

Kate leaves her hand in his, and settles in to sleep. Her neck doesn't hurt so bad right now.

* * *

Seth's in the shower again when she wakes up, which is weird - he hates leaving her alone at all, when they're in places like this, and never does it without warning her - so she slips out of bed, stretching and yawning and not fully awake, tugging at her sleep shorts and scratching at the still-itchy sunburn on the back of her neck.

She doesn't knock on the bathroom door. Somehow, it doesn't occur to her that she'll need to. The shower door is frosted glass, so it's not as if she's going to see anything she shouldn't, and it isn't as if Seth hasn't stumbled mostly-asleep into an occupied bathroom early in the morning to pee before. She knows what's under those not-as-tailored-as-they-could-be suit trousers, more or less.

Or so she thought.

The shower door is open, the grimy mat on the floor is soaking wet, and Seth's leaning against the back wall. He's naked, wet all over, and touching himself.

Oh, God, is he touching himself.

He hasn't even noticed her yet, which is just as well - she can't even _imagine_ how stupid her face looks right now - and she wonders why this feels as torn-apart stunning as waking up after Amaru left her, to find Seth looking down at her with tears in his eyes, to find his blood in her veins, to find him _there,_ with her, after everything.

He's so beautiful.

His eyes are closed, again, and he's got his fist pressed against his mouth - she can see a flash of teeth against his knuckles, when his knees jerk and the taut muscles in his thighs twitch visibly. His other hand is wrapped around his dick, stroking quick and firm, looking more efficient than pleasurable, and Kate thinks _I could do it better._

She hasn't got a whole lot of experience in this arena - aside from Frenching Kyle, she's kissed Seth just once, yesterday, in the middle of a getaway that had almost gone sideways, until he pulled her into an alleyway, pressed her against the wall, moulded against her when the goons ran past, and then his tongue was in her mouth and she was hanging onto him like she was drowning, until his hand brushed over her sunburn and she gasped, and spooked him - but she rode shotgun for Amaru plenty, and has a fair idea of how things work.

She strips off while Seth's hand speeds up, while his chest starts to heave, and drops to her knees in the shower.

He nearly jumps out of his skin when she presses her hands to his thighs, low down, near his knees.

"Hi," she says, blinking away the water that bounces off his stomach and splashes onto her face, and smiling before all her courage leaves her. "Want some help?"

" _Kate-"_ he chokes out, hand flying from his dick to the back of her head, and even though he looks like he wants to push her away, his fingers curl through her hair. "You shouldn't-"

She slides her hands up his thighs, slowly, giving him plenty of chance to get rid of her. He doesn't.

"I want to, though," she says, and leans in to kiss under his hipbone, soft and open-mouthed. His whole body shakes, and he presses his hand back to his mouth, biting down again as she kisses down from his hipbone, mouthing along the hard line of muscle there. He moans when she lets his dick brush over her cheek, the hand in her hair gripping tight, and she thinks he sobs when she finally takes the tip of him into her mouth.

It feels strange, even if she knows that technically, her body has done this before. Everything has dimmed out, except a few highlights of sensation - Seth's thighs flexing under her hands, his hand in her hair, the gorgeous noises he's making, the itchy-burn of her sunburn, and the sense-memory of Amaru saying _I prefer big boys_ before-

"Hey," Seth says, sinking down to his knees beside her, all that coiled-tight tension leaching from him, replaced with overwhelming concern, "hey, come on, it's okay, I'm here, I'm here-"

So, blowjobs are out. Okay.

She curls as close to him as she can, climbing into his lap so she can wrap herself around him and be sure that yes, this is really _her_ body, not anyone else's, and this is really Seth, not some fucked up imitation created to drive her crazy so Amaru could get rid of her-

"I'm right here," he says, right against her ear, and it doesn't matter that they're naked in the shower right then, because this isn't about sex anymore. "I'm not going anywhere, princess, I swear to God."

* * *

She can't even look him in the eye after that, and Richie notices it.

"Wanna talk?" he offers, in the door of her room with two beers in his hand, not an hour after she and Seth get home. Richie remains, as always, a complete asshole, but he's _their_ asshole, and is sometimes incredibly sweet, so she doesn't even mind anymore, not really.

"I'd rather get drunk," she tells him, wondering if this is the appeal of heroin, for Seth - a chance to completely erase everything that hurts, just for a while. Long enough to get some sleep. "How does that sound?"

"Dumb as shit," Richie says, blunt and smiling, and he kicks the door shut behind him. "C'mon, kid, tell me what's up."

"No."

"C'mon. Tell Uncle Richard."

"I- ew, never say that again," she splutters, taking both beers from him while he's snickering at his weird, pretty gross joke. "And I'm not talking about it. Ever. To anyone. Least of all _you."_

"I'm a great listener," he promises her, trying to swipe back one of the beers and scowling when she licks both bottles - his germophobia is so useful, sometimes. "Low blow, Kate. Low fucking blow."

What a choice of words.

"You're not going to want to listen to this," she promises, but he settles onto the chair at her dressing table, and sits forward with his elbows on his knees - he's genuinely worried about her, she realises, and finds herself getting kind of choked up because of it.

"Try me."

"So," she says, after chugging as much beer as she could before coming up for air, "I tried to give Seth head in the shower, but I had a panic attack because of a flashback to the kind of kinky shit Amaru used to get up to, while she was controlling my body."

Richie sits back, very deliberately, and pointedly does not make a face.

"Still want to listen?"

"No," he admits, smiling just a little. "But Seth does - maybe you should let him."

* * *

"I shouldn't have kissed you," he says, before she can even get a word out, "and I sure as shit shouldn't have just _stood there_ and put my dick in your mouth."

"First of all," she said, "you totally, absolutely should have kissed me _before now,_ and second, I was the one who put your dick in my mouth. That was all me."

He's biting down on a smile, but it dies away when she turns to face him - he does this, sometimes, comes out and sits in the back seat of the car to think, and if the thought of getting naked with him again didn't make her skin itch like she was sunburned all over, then maybe she'd think about making use of this gloriously Richie-less space to find out what he feels like dry, when she's not panicking.

Instead, she shuffles close, fits herself under his arm, settles her ear over his heart - hammering harder than hers, and that's a comfort.

"I want you to kiss me," she whispers, "I'm just not sure I can kiss you back."

* * *

She dreams about sex.

Sometimes, it's nightmares. Undulating planes of muscle lit red, by both the overhead lights and by Amaru's vision, cries that might be pain but ought to be pleasure, in a place like this. There are straps, wrapped around wrists and cutting into backs, and there are flashes of something that even Amaru cannot create. It sparks along her nerves like marshlights, sickly and wavering and yet real, for the moment.

She hates those dreams. On those nights, she wakes up crying, sometimes alone and sometimes with Seth curling around her back, wrapping her up tight in his arms and whispering nonsense into her hair - _I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry,_ ringing like Catholic guilt in the stale air of her bedroom.

Kate's not Catholic, of course, but Richie told her that they were, before the fire. After that, none of it seemed to matter to them, but she thinks that maybe something burrowed deep down into Seth's soul, and he hasn't had the luxury of seeing it burned away by culebra venom like Richie has.

The other dreams, well, she's woken up once or twice to find Seth in the door of her room, after one of those. He's all light and shadow, wanting and afraid of hurting her, and her body fizzes like a root beer float under the heat of his gaze, after those other dreams.

* * *

"Listen," Richie says, one hazy-hot afternoon, just the two of them sitting on the back veranda. He's hidden in the deepest shadows available, soaking up the heat out of the sun like the lizard he is, but Kate is sitting with her face tipped into the light, seeking out as much firepower to chase away the darkness and red-tinted edges of her mind as she can find. "I might wear glasses, but I still see plenty."

She lifts her head to look him in his perfectly functioning eyes, and raises a hand.

"You literally have a third eye, Richie," she says flatly, and then tips her head back again. The sunburn on her neck has healed up, but she can feel a new stretch cutting in across her nose and cheekbones, around the freckles, and thinks, _I don't care one bit._

Seth is gone into town alone. He's been doing that a couple of times a week the last while, and when she asks him what he's doing, he gets kind of sketchy. At first, she was worried that he was using again, but now, seeing him clear-eyed and clear-minded, she's afraid that he's gotten sick of lingering a breath away from her, and has found someone more accessible.

"You don't have to be jealous about what Seth's doing," Richie says. "I know what he's up to, kid. You're good. You're safe."

She knows she's safe, knowing that she's safe from harm is probably the only thing that keeps her sane when the shadows pull themselves bloody-handed to the front of her mind, but it's still nice to be told.

"What do you mean?" she asks, because sure, right, a guy like Seth is going to wait for her dumb mind to catch up to her body. Not a damn thing to worry about. Nothing to be jealous over.

"He's sorting some shit out," Richie tells her, leaning deeper into the shadows so all she can see is the light glinting on his glasses and his teeth. "But it's all good, okay? Just be cool."

* * *

It takes until that evening, while she's rinsing away the dew of a day spent in the sun, for her to realise how fucking _dumb_ it is, that Richie - Richie! - told her to _be cool,_ as if Richie doesn't live right on the edge of explosive panic at all times.

* * *

Seth is sitting on the corner of her bed when she comes out of the shower, dressed for bed, her hair mostly dry.

"I got these for you," he says, holding out a brown envelope, A4, clearly brand new. "I- I thought it might help."

She sits beside him, her arm pressing against his, and the first few pamphlets out of the envelope are for a counselling service, a group for survivors of domestic abuse, a veteran's group for former prisoners of war.

"This is what you've been doing all week?" she asks, and he shrugs, looking embarrassed. She's so grateful that she thinks she might cry, or kiss him. " _Seth-"_

"There's more," he says, very quietly, and takes the envelope from her shaking hands.

Spread out over the bed, there are twelve pamphlets. Counselling service, domestic abuse, veterans, seven different churches, a beauty salon, and Planned Parenthood.

"You said that she used your body to do things," he says, now standing with his arm around her shoulder. Her knees feel a little weak, because if she goes to Planned Parenthood, she'll have to walk past the pro-life protesters who are going to be like the minibus full of people who used ride to the Planned Parenthood nearest Bethel once a month - she wasn't allowed go with them, only adults were, but she'd wanted to, before she'd realised that maybe, just maybe, abortion isn't the worst thing in the world, and she'll have to let them stick needles into her, and she'll have to lay back on an examination table and let a stranger look between her legs-

"Hey," he says, "we can start small, Kate."

She nods, winding her arms around his waist while her chest begins to crumple again, and presses her face against his soft cotton t-shirt - but even that feels rough on her sunburn, and he laughs when she hisses _"sugar"_ under her breath.

"You're allowed to say shit, you know," he says, tip of his nose brushing against hers when she lifts her head. She's up on her toes, not sure how she got there, and he's got both arms around her now, warm and strong and _safe._

He shivers when she kisses him.

* * *

Three days later, Kate finds herself sitting in a shiny coral pink leather chair in the salon in town, wearing jeans and a tank top and a flannel shirt that she found in the very back of Richie's wardrobe. She can't imagine either Gecko in flannel, too used to them in suits and white shirts, so she doesn't feel even slightly guilty for stealing it.

"What can I do for you, sweetheart?" the stylist asks. She's a plump lady, maybe forty-five, wearing a sensible black smock and comfortable, outrageous, peacock-feather patterned leggings.

"Just a trim," Kate says, even though she kind of wishes she was brave enough to ask for a full colour. She's tried box dyes, though, and the colour just never seems to stick over the red. It's like putting concealer on a scar. "And maybe shape it a little, around my face?"

The stylist, Adelaide, smiles, and her smooth teeth and pink-framed glasses are bright against her dark face.

"Honey, with hair like yours, there's not much I need to do," she says. "Let's get started, huh? Let you get back to that fine piece of meat who came in and made your appointment."

Kate flushes pink, not red, and is absurdly pleased with that, even if it does clash with the peeling sunburn painted across her cheekbones.

"I'm gonna guess here," Adelaide says, guiding her across to the sinks, "that your boy is trying to help you get over something kinda heavy."

"You could say that," Kate admits, leaning back and gripping hard to the arms of the chair. Amaru's memories linger sweaty and painful somewhere in the bottom back left corner of her mind, and she can see… Something. Enough to make the back of her neck go cold and damp. "He's helping more than he knows."

"I think you're stronger than you know, too, sweetheart," Adelaide says, "else you wouldn't be fighting off that flashback so well."

Her hands go very still on the arms of the chair as Adelaide starts soaking her hair.

"I did two tours in Afghanistan, honey," Adelaide says, and Kate realises that what she took for just an odd step might be a prosthetic leg, or old shrapnel wounds. "I know PTSD when I see it - I kinda figured that was why your boy chose me over either Sally's or Lou-Anne's."

Maybe it was - Kate will never know, though. Seth would never admit to it, even if she asked.

"So let's see," Adelaide says. "Y'ain't a vet, and y'ain't got the kinda scars I'd expect from a girl who'd been put to work - but the way you kept touching that cross around your neck says cult. Feel like talking?"

Turns out that yeah, she kinda _does_ feel like talking - so she talks around Amaru and around all that blood, the feeling of souls weighing her own down into the depths of her heart, and feels a little lighter after it.

Her hair looks great, too, even if it is still red, and that helps more than she ever thought it could.

* * *

"It's nice," Richie says, passing a steaming takeout container across the table - Thai tonight, bought on his way back from some culebra-ing or other. Just the two of them, because Seth still goes out on small jobs, even though they have enough money to be comfortable, if not to live in the lap of luxury. "Didn't want to risk dye not taking where someone else can see?"

Richie dyed her roots for her, when she tried the box dyes. He has very steady hands.

"Maybe I should just accept the red for what it is," she says, shrugging, and rolls her chopsticks between her hands. "What doesn't kill you, right?"

"Something like that," Richie agrees, and then tilts his head. "You look up the church?"

"Not today," she admits. "But I might borrow the car tomorrow-"

"Seth's car," Richie says very firmly. "I've seen how you drive - you're not touching my car."

"Seth doesn't like me driving his car either," she points out. "Maybe we should consider buying me a car of my own, especially since I'm the only one in this house who can legally drive in the US without flashing up on like, a dozen alert screens, because _I_ don't have a fake licence and _I'm_ not legally dead."

"And that's just with the Rangers," Richie agrees, smiling that one smile of his that makes Seth so uncomfortable. "Okay then, a car for Katie - I'm sure we can manage that."

It fascinates her, the way Richie eats - he doesn't need to, but he does just for the pleasure of it.

Seth, on the other hand, eats because he has to, except in those rare moments when she catches him with a tin of pineapple chunks, or with those sickly-sweet ready made peach ice teas the little store on the corner by the post office sells for ninety-nine cents. He has the taste buds of a ten year old at a church cook-out, sugar and sweet and only good for him by accident.

If Richie comes through with a car for her, she'll be able to go and do real grocery shopping on her own, take her time in that big grocery store on the other side of town. Maybe she'll be able to pick a few things up for baking. Maybe she'll make her momma's golden syrup crust and apple and blackberry pie filling, and see if that doesn't conquer even Seth's sweet tooth.

She could cook a whole meal for Seth. Peanut butter and honey and apple fritters and all kinds of sweet, healthy things, to try and balance all the processed crap he chows down on.

* * *

The church is a whitewashed building with a red-tiled roof, and the big wooden front door is painted sunshine yellow.

"Keeps away the fucking snakes," Seth says, but he's smiling, and that takes the bite out of it. "You sure you don't want some company?"

Her hands are shaking so hard she can barely hold onto her phone, but she nods.

"No," she says, "no. I think I have to do this alone."

He shrugs, as if it's no big deal, but he also tips his seat back just a little, makes himself comfortable and settles in, ready to wait however long she needs him to.

The doors sigh when she nudges them open, and the space inside is wide open, full of sunlight and the smell of furniture polish and paper, with neat rows of sturdy wooden chairs and a row of high-up windows letting in the cool morning air. It's nothing like church back home, but it feels the same. Quiet. Full of something gentle. _Safe._

She sits down near the back, pressing her Bible to her chest with both hands, over her cross-and-chain, and waits. It's slow, but the familiar calm settles in her crushing-expanding-ever shifting chest, and she feels her shoulders slump, tension she didn't even realise was holding her tight easing away.

 _Hello, God,_ she thinks, and bows her head with a smile. _Long time, big guy._

She would never have prayed like that before all this, but the Geckos have a nasty tendency of rubbing off on everyone around them.

She prays now, keeping her head down, her smile fading as she thinks of Daddy and Momma, of Scott who checks in every couple of months but not often enough for peace of mind, of Santanico - of _Kisa,_ who wants a better life for her people, which is something Kate can get behind - and of Freddie, who got a letter to her, telling her that he was safe, with his wife and their daughter, and that he's out. He's done.

She can't blame him.

Seth and Richie she's less sorrowful over - they're right where she can see them, most of the time, so she knows they're alive, knows they're as safe as can be expected given who they are. She smiles when she prays for them, and when she lifts her head, there's a man leaning over the lectern.

"Welcome, stranger," he says, hands loose and inoffensive where they're draped over the lectern. He's maybe sixty, with a wave of sandy-white hair and sharply blue eyes behind rimless glasses. "First time?"

"More of a reunion," she says, smiling a little, holding up her well-worn Bible. Scott left it for her one day, a relic from their house in Bethel - is that still theirs, she wonders? Has Scott packed up all of Momma's jewellery, and Daddy's theology books? Are her pretty floral dresses folded neatly in a cardboard box in a storage locker somewhere? "Been a while. Almost feels like I forgot how to talk to Him Upstairs."

It never leaves you - she prayed without thinking all the time while they were lost in the Twister, and every time she sank a needle into Seth's neck she prayed he'd wake up from the stupor, and the whole damn time she was locked up in the back of her own soul.

She prayed harder than she's ever prayed when she stabbed that poor son-of-a-bitch in the chest, in the desert, under a starry sky she couldn't see. Harder even than when she ended Daddy's suffering.

"I'm Pastor Hagan," the old man at the lectern says, in his plaid shirt and worn jeans and dusty boots. He looks like an old rancher, settling into a lazy retirement. Even Seth might like him, Kate thinks, and smiles.

"Kate," she says. "What time is Sunday service?"

* * *

"Well?" Seth asks, turning to face her, curling one arm over the back of her seat and leaning into her space. Close. Intimate. Concerned. "Worth it?"

"I'm coming back on Sunday," she says, and he smiles. This close in, it's dazzling, and she touches his face without thinking, fingertips brushing over the scruff on his jaw. "Wanna join me?"

"In multiple ways," he says, and she can feel his breath against her mouth, "but maybe not at church. I don't think they'd approve."

* * *

She goes shopping with Richie the next day.

She _could_ go shopping with Seth. That is a thing that could happen. But this is more fun, if only because Richie gets distracted so easily by things like hideous red leather shoes, and that means she can slip away to find things she needs, like cute panties and bras to match, or the kind of shoes she tried on that one time when they had to slip into a fancy department store in a town too small for a fancy department store to escape a very, very angry culebra.

Seth had gone all slack-mouthed and stammering when she tried them on, and she'd really liked the way they'd made her butt look under her jeans - so she passes one of those credit cards under _Kate Delilo'_ s name over the counter, and adds one more bag to the growing number Richie is somehow carrying without any of them falling or falling apart.

"We done?" he asks. "I could go for something cold and sweet right about now."

"There's ice cream back at the house," she says, "and I have one last thing to do."

There's a tiny store tucked away in the corner of the mall, painted purple, with a window full of statues of angels and fairies.

"Okay," Richie says, "listen, the shoe shop, I get. You sneaking into the lingerie shop, I get. All those other shops, I get. But this? Hoodoo?"

"My mother used to burn incense around the house," she says. "I'd feel more at home if our house smelled of something other than cordite and gasoline."

"Mostly it smells of plywood and baking," Richie says, because he never knows when to shut up. "And pheromones."

"And- shut the _fuck_ up, Richard," she says, furious and blushing because of course Richie is going to bring up things like _pheromones._ Kate is more than aware that she's exuding about twice the level of sex pheromones than is normal for her age and body type, _she is so aware of that,_ what with the way her skin shimmers every time Seth touches her, but she doesn't need Richie _telling her._

"I'm just calling it like I see it," he says, and then grins, and taps the side of his nose. "Or smell it."

She doesn't even dignify that with a response, and by the time she's picked out a nice burner and all the scents she remembers Momma burning, along with a few she thinks the boys will like, Richie has somehow managed to get ice-cream for them both.

He even got her the cone with the chocolate and sprinkles around the rim.

"No more pheromone talk," she tells him. "Or I'll stake you. Sound fair?"

"How about," he counters, "you don't bring me along when you're buying lingerie for my brother's sake, and I won't tell Ranger Gonzalez that Seth wants to bone you?"

Kate stops mid-stride, and almost chokes on her ice-cream at the idea of just how grossed out Freddie would be at the idea of her being with Seth.

"Oh, my God," she says, struggling for breath around her laughter. "Oh my God, please let me be there for that conversation. You have _no_ idea."

* * *

She goes to the domestic abuse group just once, and cries so hard she has to pull over on the way home to throw up.

The veterans group is good, though, and the _other_ veterans group that she's linked up with, once Skids puts together the pieces she _isn't_ giving them, that's even better. They meet once a week in the backroom of the truck stop off the highway just on the other side of town, and they share horror stories of fangs and stakes and shining yellow eyes, and Kate very carefully omits the fact that she literally lives with a culebra.

It helps, though. None of them can match up to her experience, and she's glad of that because she wouldn't wish it on anyone, but it does help to be _honest_ with people, just for once.

* * *

She brushes out her hair and ties it low at the back of her neck with a long blue ribbon on Sunday morning, and she lets Seth zip her into a pretty blue dress.

He drives her to church, sunglasses on and slumped low in the seat, and leans over to kiss her cheek before she turns to get out of the car.

"This is good for you," he says. "I'm glad."

She floats in through the sunshine yellow doors, and takes her place near the back of the church, letting the chatter and laughter of the growing congregation wash over her.

 _Hey, Big Guy,_ she thinks, sending her thoughts skywards - because she's been in Hell, and it is definitely, definitely below them - and smiling. _Think we're ready to make a go of this again?_

Seth is dozing when she slides into the car just after noon, and startles awake when she closes the door.

"We sang so many songs," Kate says, sliding on her sunglasses, "and I think I'm becoming friends with God again."

"Uh," Seth says, looking confused but pleased, "good?"

She laughs, kisses him on the cheek while he's distracted, and puts on her seatbelt.

"Let's go to the big grocery store," she says. "I'm in the mood for some home cooking."

* * *

Seth holds her face in his hands and kisses her for aeons that night, before she goes to bed.

Her mouth is tender by the time he's finished, and when he draws away, he stays close - close enough that she could count his eyelashes, if she wanted, close enough that she can feel the shudder in his every indrawn breath against her lips.

"Tell me to stop," he says, brushing his fingers down the sides of her neck, over her shoulders - one slips back into her hair, the other swoops down to settle on her hip. "Do you want me to stop?"

"Don't think so," she says, holding on tight to the front of his shirt and pushing up to kiss him again, for another eternity.

He's so _warm,_ and so _careful_ \- that helps. That makes the pain stay far away, and keeps her grounded here, in Seth's arms, in their house, with moonlight and the scent of gardenia for company.

He pulls her a little closer, and she goes. He has to bend, really bend, to kiss her easily, but he doesn't seem to mind - she wraps her arms around his neck and settles into it, letting him straighten up a little so she's barely touching the floor.

He pulls away again, further this time, and he smiling at her with something soft and brilliant in his eyes.

"That's us for the night," he says, gently letting her go, unwinding her arms, and nudging her toward her room. "Same time tomorrow, folks."

She scowls, without any real malice behind it.

"I'll be back for the show tomorrow, then," she says, blowing him a kiss as she flounces into her room, the skirt of her pretty blue dress bouncing up in her wake. "Sweet dreams, Gecko."

"God _damn_ it, Fuller-"

She closes the door behind her, and bites down on a squeal - she isn't even a little scared, not now.


End file.
